"Well, that was worth a standing ovation, but I don't think I can feel my feet," laughed Daymond Langkow as he curled Andrew Ference's hair around his little finger.

"Hmph. And people say you've got no hands," Ference said with a coquette's glance. He bit his lip as he looked off towards the wall, feeling the bulbous, hairy knuckle slip out from under the spiral of hair. He closed his eyes as a palm pressed into the base of his neck, fingers pulsing into his strained shoulders.

"Is that a challenge?"

Ference adjusted the pillow beneath his face. How many times had he been here, staring at these same 2004 Western Conference Champions polyester sheets, cursing himself for answering his damn cell phone. Langkow's hands slipped fully onto his shoulders, squeezing the taught muscle beneath them. Ference blinked hard, burying the tear forming in his right eye into the flames shooting out of the horse's head beneath him. He felt fingers tiptoeing down his spine.

"Daymond, do you want to share a room this time?"

"What?" said Langkow absent-mindedly, his fingers tracing down the curve of his teammate's back.

"When we go to Edmonton, Jim said we were staying the night, so do you want to share my room? Stephane is coming this time, so Tony is back with him," Ference said, looking over his shoulder, trying to hide the longing in his eyes and his voice.

"I'm with Hammer," Langkow chuckled as he leaned towards Ference's lower back, eyes zeroing in on his goal.

Ference couldn't hold back anymore. "Dammit, Daymond, can I talk to you for one minute without you groping me?!"

"Oh, calm down." Langkow pulled his hands away with a start and slumped onto the bed, scratching his chest disgustedly; another night without scoring, he thought to himself as he looked around the room for his underwear, the characteristic red-and-yellow old school colour pattern peeking out from under a pair of jeans. Well, maybe I can try for some overtime, he thought, leaning back to show off his bicep, still glowing from sweat.

"What, you think I want anything to do with that big, hairy Czech bimbo," Langkow, smiled, wrapping his hand around Ference's ankle. "He smells like goulash."

Ference laughed in spite of himself. Why do I keep doing this? he asked himself as he tried to keep a frown. There was a hand on his knee now. He nimbly snatched the other one, bringing it up to his chest. "If you were this smooth on the ice, we wouldn't have powerplay problems," he said, only half-mocking, as Langkow began moving his hand under his own power.

Of course, Ference thought, I'd still have my problems. As a hand ran down his stomach, a tear rolled down his cheek. I guess I have to get my standing ovations somehow.

"... with our dinks!" exclaimed Bergeron, his chest glistening from the heat of the plug-in griddle. He was naked except for a blue tarp bunched hastily around his waist. "I found this is the garage! I was right next to ..."

…and with his other finger Marc-Andre explores the batter until he finds a plump juice-filled berry.

Excitedly, he squishes just hard enough for the bluish-red fluid to be released in a little pool. After dabbing his finger in, Marc-Andre draws a long straight line down the middle of George's sculpted ebony chest.

"I dub thee..."

Another dab, and this time his finger slowly paints a line from nipple to nipple.